


A Very Harley Snow Day

by amazingspaceship



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Post-Canon, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 10:22:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17160239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amazingspaceship/pseuds/amazingspaceship
Summary: Wintertime in the Harley+Strider+Vantas household: sledding, tree-shopping, snowball fighting, snowman building, and Troll Celebrity Jeopardy.





	A Very Harley Snow Day

“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done,” Dave says, “and keep in mind that one time I ate a whole watermelon in a single sitting. This is dumber.”

Jade sets her toboggan down with a thump and surveys the hill, as if it’ll have gotten any less steep since the last time she looked. “Don’t be such a baby,” she chides, simultaneously running a velocity calculation in her head. The number she comes up with is not exactly comforting. “Wait, you really ate the whole thing at once?”

“Terezi dared me.” Dave gingerly sits down on his sled, like he’s worried it’ll start moving without his say-so. “It remains the most questionable decision I've ever made, although I have the feeling that this one will top it.”

"We’ll be fine!" Jade says. "We probably won't even die."

The local kids call this Breakneck Hill, partly for the speeds you get up to and party for what happens if you wipe out. It’s categorized as a hill only by virtue of a few degrees—subtract a couple inches and it’d be a cliff. Words like ‘sheer’ and ‘life-threatening’ spring to mind, although in Jade’s opinion it’s also ‘awesome.’

They're going to race down it. She is much more enthusiastic about it than Dave, who is a weenie, and who spent the whole climb up dictating his will to an amused Rose over the phone.

Jade peers down the hill. If she squints she can see the tiny speck that is Karkat, who flatly refused to be bullied into one of her "stupid adrenaline junkie death wish stunts.” His poofy coat is stark red against the snow, visible even despite the distance, like an angry cherry floating in a sea of white. He’ll be determining the winner of the race, assuming that she can get Dave to go through with it at all.

Speaking of which... She glances at Dave, who is, yeah, he’s looking distinctly green. “Why did I agree to this,” he groans. “Why did I let you drag me into this?”

"Because we are very good friends! And also because I promised to stop putting my dirty Erlenmeyer flasks in the dishwasher if you beat me. Which you won't, obviously."

"Karkat better appreciate my fucking sacrifice" Dave mutters. "I'm taking one for the team here. I'm taking several for the team. I'm like Jesus over here, dying on the cross for the team, bloodstained jersey flapping in the wind. Let's do this."

Jade scoots her sled forward until the tips of both their sleds are level. The wind is chilly—from somewhere deeper into the forest, a bird begins to call.

"Five!" She says. "Four! Three! Two!"

"Actually, you know what, fuck this."

"Too late to back out now!" Jade yells, and with a tug at her space powers she and Dave go hurtling forwards.

Needless to say, it’s _awesome._

Sometimes, on Prospit, Jade would dive from the top of her tower, falling instead of flying, only to pull up at the last minute. This feels is a little bit like that, except faster and with Dave screaming in the background. Her sled sprays up clouds of snow as she careens down the hill, the wind pulling at her hair and scarf. The trees lining the hill whip by in a blur of green and white.

Jade lets out a wild whoop of delight, even as Dave’s screaming grows shriller. She hits a bump and _soars,_ totally free from the ground, and it’s the best feeling ever.

Her sled shudders as she touches back down, but thankfully holds together. She's ahead of Dave by a foot or so, but out of the corner of her eye she can see him gaining. He’s thrown himself forwards, gripping the sides of his sled so hard his knuckles have gone white. Jade leans over a little and tries to mentally urge her sled to go faster. Like hell is she going to lose to Dave! And like hell is she going to bother washing her chemistry stuff separately.

They’re about halfway down the hill, and it’s started to get a little rougher. She’s nearly sent spinning out of control by an unfortunately placed bolder and has to swerve to avoid crashing. Dave, for his part, nearly clips a tree with the corner of his sled.

Belatedly, Jade realizes another hazard: a jagged ravine cutting horizontally across the hill, rocky and wide and altogether mean-looking. There’s no way around it—Jade squeezes her eyes shut and tugs wildly at her space powers, the whole world exploding into a flash of green—

And then she teleports across the divide and slams straight into Karkat, who goes flying.

Once everything has stopped spinning (and Karkat has, well, he hasn’t stopped yelling but he’s slowing down a little) Jade sits up and takes stock of the situation. It seems she teleported her and Dave over the ravine, the rest of the way down the hill, and a few feet into the air to boot. “I guess... I win?” she says aloud.

“—COMPLETELY IRRESPONSIBLE AND DANGEROUS YOU ABSOLUTELY BRAINLESS—“

“Nuh-uh,” says Dave, who has been lying face-up on his toboggan, completely still, for the past two minutes. “Totally invalidated by illegal use of magic powers. That’s poor sportsmanship, Harley, shame on you.”

“—COULD HAVE FUCKING KILLED ME YOU FUCKING—“

“I guess we’ll just have to go again!”

“—NOT TO MENTION THE RISK, I DON’T KNOW WHY—“

“Nope. Never. In a hundred years, never,” Dave says. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m just gonna take a quick 15-minute power nap.” And he passes out.

* * *

After Jade has teleported all three of them back to the house (and put a dollar into the “unnecessary bodily harm” jar) Karkat suggests they do something that they’ve been putting off: namely, getting a tree.

None of them are particularly attached to human holiday customs, for obvious reasons, but a tree is something they can all agree on. So they all pile into Karkat’s car (a minivan, much to Jade and Dave’s mutual disgust) and drive to the first lot Troogle maps can find.

And then they keep driving. And driving.

Apparently there is not a single lot in the entirety of the troll kingdom with a suitable tree for sale. Dave even pulls out the “we literally created your world” card a few times, but to no avail.

It is, as Karkat declares, abso-fucking-lutely ridiculous.

They're on their eighth lot, with still no progress, when Dave decides to jokingly toss a snowball at Jade's turned back. And she couldn't just take that lying down, could she?

What follows is about thirty minutes of escalation. The tree place has long since closed, the patrons have all fled, and Karkat has barricaded himself in the minivan to avoid the carnage. Jade (with the aid of her space powers) has built herself a multi-level snow fort with battlements and a small moat, while Dave has taken to flashstepping around the parking lot to dodge her throws. Jade is usually an ace shot, between the rifle practice and space powers, but Dave is too damn _fast_. Like, freakishly so. He darts back and forth between cover, his whole body blurring as he moves, somehow managing to evade every single projectile.

On the plus side, Dave can't aim for shit.

It's a cold war, in every sense of the term, and also extremely ridiculous; but Jade's competitive streak has kinda started to come out. Maybe she can't win at competitive sledding, but she can damn well hit a moving target!

"Give up, Dave!' she yells, her voice echoing in the empty parking lot. She chucks a snowball at Dave, an absolutely perfect shot, which he deftly and gracefully dodges. "You're hopelessly outmatched!"

"Nah."

"I'm a god of space! You can't keep dodging forever!"

"Your face can't keep dodging forever."

"That doesn't even make sense! I'll get you eventually!"

Dave does a showy acrobatic twist in midair, dodging all three of her flung snowballs, and executes a flawless youth roll to land on his feet. "I think you'll be surprised," he says.

Jade scoffs and readies another snowball, concentrating on calculating her shot. She'll get him with this one, for sure. "Yeah, right!" she scoffs, winding up to throw.

"Surprise," says a voice from behind her.

Jade turns just in time to see Karkat, a shit-eating grin on his face, and a snowball hurtling towards her.

It hits her right in the chest and she goes toppling off the snow fort, yelling and mugging dramatically (even though it's only like a 6 or 7-foot drop). She hits the ground with an _oof_ and a puff of snow, and then just sort of... lies there in defeat. Karkat picks his way down the side of her fort just as Dave jogs over from the parking lot, laughing his head off. The two of them do a complicated little victory high-five and grin delightedly down at her.

"You cheated!" Jade grumbles, pointing an accusing finger at an amused Dave. "The two of you were in cahoots!"

"You never made a rule against cahoots," Dave counters, grinning. "Looks like it's Dave and Karkat one: Jade zero."

"Liar! I totally won at sledding."

"You nearly killed me!" Karkat retorts. "Plus you cheated with your space powers!"

"Lets just compromise and say that I won," Jade says. Dave reaches out a hand and she takes it, letting him pull her up. She does her best to brush snow from her coat and assume a dignified air.

" _Anyway_ , we still haven't found a tree," Karkat reminds them. "And I'm not looking forward to driving halfway across the fucking kingdom just to see another 'sold out,' sign."

"Actually," Jade says, "I think I might have an idea about that."

* * *

It's not traditional, by any means, but the Kringlefucker looks kind of nice set by the fireplace. Plus, as Dave points out, they don't even need to decorate it.

* * *

Her first snowman is going great! Probably. She thinks.

It’s not like she has anything to compare it to, okay, she grew up on a tropical island where the closest thing to snow was the ice maker. And when she finally got to go someplace with snow she had to spend the whole time hunting for frogs. And the snowsquiddles they made on the Squiddles Christmas Special had way too many tentacles to be a good guide for snowman-making. Snowmanning? Sure.

So, yes. First ever snowman: probably good! Dave told her that the arms were a nice touch, at least, even if it took her like an hour to get the animatronics from freezing. And he didn’t act like it was weird when she added the second head.

...Then again, he grew up in Texas, so maybe he isn’t the best barometer for judging her snowman-assembling skills.

Karkat, being Karkat, has gone inside to watch Troll Jeopardy in the warmth. It's just her and Dave outside, now. She's reminded a little of the time they spent LOFAF, before the scratch, except without the threat of endless oblivion looming overhead. Just her and Dave, hanging out. It's nice.

Jade finishes tweaking the hydraulics and steps back to admire the finished product. Her snowman is easily six feet tall, has two meticulously sculpted heads, and has a waving robotic arm. Dave's snowman has fallen over.

"I don't know how the fuck you’re doing that," he groans, kicking at his lopsided snowbro. “How are you supposed to get them to stay upright?”

Jade shrugs. “Physics? Engineering? Basic skills?”

Dave rolls his eyes and flicks her in the shoulder. Jade laughs and shoves him back, and he grabs her scarf as the two of them topple over onto the snow, giggling.

Jade rolls over and stares up at the sky. Snowflakes fall sparsely but steadily, spinning gently through the air. After a few moments, Dave looks over at her from his own reclined position. “You’ve got your thinking face on,” he notes.

“I was just thinking,” Jade says, “about how lucky I am. To be here, with you, without any imminent meteors or oncoming boss battles. Just… hanging out. Having fun in the snow.”

Dave turns back to face the sky, letting snow pepper the lenses of his shades. “Yeah,” he says. I know exactly how you feel.”

He reaches out a hand and Jade takes it, threading her fingers in his. It feels like friendship, like family, like sledding and snowball fights and laughter and joy. It feels like safety.

It feels like _home_.

After that they lie in the snow for a while, making snow angels and chatting idly about nothing in particular. When the sun starts to dip over the horizon Karkat pokes his head out a window to inform them that he’s made hot chocolate, and that John is currently making a fool of himself on Troll Celebrity Jeopardy. Soon they’ll head inside, curl up by the Kringlefucker under a nice warm blanket, and sip warm cocoa while watching John struggle to remember the state capitals.

But for now, Jade lies in the snow, and enjoys the moment.

**Author's Note:**

> This was my gift for the Homestuck Twitter Secret Santa exchange! My recipient was @IzzyAzrazy, who asked for Dave and Jade hanging out. I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
